Laser Pointer Holograms

kgb1001001 writes: "A couple of instructors at Lake Forest College and the Kyoto Institute of Technology have put together a nice little page on amateur holography using laser pointer diodes. This home-page gives enough information to get started and also includes an order form for the photographic plates and chemicals needed to develop the holograms. Also, another page discusses the same techniques and materiels, but comes with some nifty pictures (2-d of course) of the final outcome."

Comments

Re:Holograms, and more...?

[daeley]

Well, the Federation won't be exposed to true-to-life holodeck technology until 2151 when the Enterprise meets up with the Xyrillians. It's a while to wait, but worth it I bet. :)

Stereoscopic 3D Desktop Wallpaper

[Bowie J. Poag]

In a similar vein, I've spent the past week or two trying to develop a way to produce seamless, stereoscopic 3D desktop backgrounds. I've always had an interest in stereography, but until now I couldn't find a way to apply it to my PROPAGANDA tiles..

Just yesterday morning I finally managed to produce (and can reproduce at will) stereoscopic 3D wallpaper in Gimp. No rendering, no photography, nuthin but pure hand-made goodness in Gimp. :) The next best thing to holography, I suppose. :) Have a look here for a small example image, or if you have a very large display, you can see the unscaled original here. Just bring it up in any image viewer, or set it as your background..The fun part about it is that casual onlookers look at your desktop and just see a nice background...You would only know it was 3D if somebody told you. :) It doesn't require any special 3D glasses or anything stupid like that -- All you need to do is lightly cross your eyes like looking at the image. Here's a quick lesson in how to see it in 3D -- Sit squarely in your chair a few feet away, directly facing your monitor. Don't look at it at an angle. Cross your eyes lightly until you see "the one in the middle". If you have problems seeing it, hold up a pencil exactly halfway between your eyes and the screen. Focus on the tip of the pencil for a few seconds and whammo, you'll see the background show up in 3D.. When tiled as a background, the 3D effect looks like an egg-carton, or like the sound-dampening walls of a recording studio. Spikes and pits. For added mirth and merriment, swivel in your chair a little bit and you'll see the image move correspondingly. Even more fun, is trying to move back slowly while seeing it. The farther you move back, the deeper the image will appear. I'll probably surprise the gimp-devel folks with an explanation of how its done in a day or two. :)

Cheers,